Escambia County School District Bans Dictionaries and Encyclopedias

Censoring what your children can ask is never a good idea. Those who censor are never the good guys. Science is true even when it conflicts with what you believe.

 

Do you have children ? If so, you never restricted what they watched on TV ?

 

Unintended consequences isn't what they wanted, press conferences where they get to look like strong men is what they wanted.

 

When my son was younger (he's 36 now by the way) I restricted what he watched on television. It was my prerogative and that of my wife to restrict what he watched, it shouldn't be the prerogative of government or other parents to determine what one's children did or did not watch on television or for that matter read. As far as school libraries are concerned I had confidence in his teachers or librarians to determine what was appropriate for him to read not other parents or politicians.

 

I'm quite sure none of you would have any issues with teachers teaching the virtues of conservatism, because you have confidence that will not be the case!

 

Straw man. I trust librarians to keep age appropriate books available in a school library. I think parents should be involved in their children’s education. I don’t want you or anyone else restricting what is available. Politicians are idiots you want them legislating what your kids have access too?

 

I would also add after being relatively successful at banning books in school libraries the theocratic authoritarians of the religious right are now going after public libraries.
Book Bans Are Rising Sharply in Public Libraries

 

I would have no problem with a teacher comparing conservatism with liberalism including describing the virtues and flaws of both political philosophies as part of class on American government. I would have a serious problem if the curriculum was an attempt at indoctrination in which the teacher only focused on the merits of one political philosophy. By the way I'm old enough that when I was high school senior our government class included pursuant to a Florida state statute a unit comparing "Americanism" with communism. The mandated text was so heavy handed that we considered the unit a joke and didn't really take it seriously.

 

The idiots march on trying to make everyone as stupid as they are.

 

I remember that class, American vs communism. It was not well thought out.

 

Some of those knuckle draggers would use the bible as the only textbook.

 

This one statement is what most conservatives see happening in schools the past 10 years or so, this is why there is such a concern and desire to mandate some of the things you see now.
You can argue the merits if you want, but it is hard to not have a bias leaning when you have a bias leaning. I am willing to admit that I don't see some of the bias in Fox News, I do see some, as the left doesn't see the amount of bias in CNN, they do admit some.

 

Always proud for my County making the national news.

 

The liberal education system didn’t seem to indoctrinate you. How did you overcome it? Why do you think todays kids couldn’t do the same?

 

Virtues of conservatism….I wish they’d teach em to you

 

Most of the middle and high schools in Escambia county are average or below. They need to concentrate on raising their standards instead of removing books from the library.

 

What some conservatives label as indoctrination really isn't. Frequently it's a teaching of history that doesn't comport of their ideas. According to a lot of conservatives teaching about the history of slavery in the US or about Jim Crow laws in the South is a form of indoctrination frequently and incorrectly labeled as critical race theory.

 

Sneaky trick to ban Dictionaries. It has all the other books in it.

 

That’s usually the MO for politicians regardless of the issue.

 

I will give the conservative criticism this: there appears to be no view from nowhere. All analysis must start from some perspective or another, even if we ourselves are blind to it. I think there likely is some rough ideal that a critical mass of us from all political camps would agree is a worthy goal. It might something like John Stuart Mill’s description here:

To prevent the State from exercising, through these arrangements, an improper influence over opinion, the knowledge required for passing an examination (beyond the merely instrumental parts of knowledge, such as languages and their use) should, even in the higher classes of examinations, be confined to facts and positive science exclusively. The examinations on religion, politics, or other disputed topics, should not turn on the truth or falsehood of opinions, but on the matter of fact that such and such an opinion is held, on such grounds, by such authors, or schools, or churches.

But even here, we cannot be totally free from standpoint of bias, as someone needs to determine which are the positive facts and opinions should be discussed during our extremely finite time with our students. This isn’t to say that I agree with DeSantis that we should mandate the teaching of the benefits of slavery or the genius of the American Declaration of Independence, as I believe such actions actually spread the disease of indoctrination that we were ostensibly trying to cure.

I do think that there are cases, particularly in higher ed, where most of the foundational assumptions upon which the curriculum is based come from an American liberal perspective. Here is one example backed by evidence, showing that in psychology that it is often conservatism that serves as the focus of explanation. (Ie liberalism is assumed, and conservative traits must be explained).

Is research in social psychology politically biased?